This invention relates to a method for controlling traffic balance between peering networks.
Contact over the World Wide Web often requires communication over networks that belong to different entities. Those different networks cost money to create and maintain, and consequently one might expect that the entities that own those networks would be concerned about whether they are properly compensated for the use of their networks. Interestingly, however, the business model that took root for the World Wide Web is that each network provider is compensated only by the customers that it services and not by the other networks, even though customers of those other networks benefit from connections through the provider's network. In other words, Internet traffic typically has not been subjected to settlement processes involving the providers of the different peering networks that make up the World Wide Web.
The settlement-free Internet peering is based on the assumption that traffic flow between any pair of networks is fairly evenly balanced. Since in such a case both networks would bear approximately an equal cost in transporting Internet traffic, the benefit from a settlement process is simply not worth the expense to set up the control mechanisms (e.g., a cross-billing mechanism, or a routing restriction).
It is recognized, however, that Internet traffic can be unevenly distributed. One network may host many customers that are content-providers and few customers that are content-consumers, while another network may host few customers that are content-providers and many customers that are content-consumers. In such a case, the transport cost burdens among the various networks are unbalanced, and the imbalance may be significant. Rather than having a network that is unduly burdened with traffic refuse to carry some traffic, it would be beneficial to all if a method for balancing the traffic burdens can be realized.